1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to rail clamp devices for vehicle beds.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vehicles such as pick-up trucks offer large cargo-carrying capacity in their cargo beds. Typically, to assist in the utility and versatility of the trucks, they are fitted with equipment rails. The rails are commonly mounted lengthwise along the sides of the cargo bed. Moreover, ends of the rails are typically at fixed locations such as a front end of the vehicle bed adjacent the vehicle cabin and a back end of the vehicle bed adjacent the tailgate. While these fixed locations do allow accessories to be attached to the rails, difficulty can arise because the accessory mountings can typically only be slid onto the ends of the rails. Because of the location of the rail ends, interference between the accessory mountings and the cargo bed walls can make it unwieldy or cumbersome to slide the mountings onto the rails. To slide an accessory mounting onto a rail ending near a vehicle wall, the mounting must be angled away from the wall as it is engaged, then, as the mounting moves along the rail, angled closer to the wall until it is parallel the wall during full engagement. To assist the user with this type of mounting, one or more notches can be cut in the end of the rail to permit complete engagement to necessarily occur further from the end of the rail than those rails without notches. Cutting notches can be a costly additional step in production of the rails.
Additionally, if a first accessory is rail-mounted and a second accessory is desired to occupy a location further along the rail than the first accessory, the first accessory must be removed prior to adding the second accessory, then re-mounting the first accessory.
Moreover, a typical accessory mounting includes an inner track which interfaces with the rail. Disposed within the inner track is often a guide which, while reducing friction between the accessory mounting and the rail, decreases the available tolerance within the accessory track for engaging the rail. Thus, it can likewise be difficult to mount an accessory even from the tailgate end of the rail.
Accordingly, there is a need for an accessory mounting which minimizes or eliminates interference at the end of the rail due to nearby vehicle walls. Similarly, a need exists for an accessory mounting which can eliminate the need to remove a first accessory near the end of a rail to position a second accessory further from the end than the first accessory. There is also a need for an accessory mounting which avoids the use of an inner track guide, which can make it more difficult to position mountings. Finally, a track mounting which does not require the cutting of notches in the rail can result in savings to rail manufacturers.